Tunnels and Town
We arrived, finally, in Ho Chi Minh City at 9 p.m. Friday night. Mai House, our hotel, is brand new, very white and impressive, with a massive marble staircase and a grand piano in the lobby. As we checked in a Beethoven sonata was nimbly played; and as we waited for a “quiet” room to be readied, we heard more Beethoven and a Chopin polonaise, the pianist, startlingly, an eight year-old girl. She and her parents are semi-residents of the hotel. Every night, she plays for an hour or so.
In the morning, we met Khoi, our 35 year old guide for the next two days. Handsome, smart and erudite, he is a happy new father and a fount of Vietnamese and Southeast Asian history—and the stray Yiddish phrase. With a driver, we set off for the Cu Chi Tunnels. But first, we had to leave Ho Chi Minh City, population 10 million, whose area makes up an entire province. City traffic consists of cars, small trucks, buses, and a wide side river of motorbikes, with one to four passengers per bike. We have never seen so many motorbikes, not even in India. Here, at least, almost everybody wears a helmet.
Khoi, who was recommended to us by friends, talked frankly about growing up in the country near Danang and going topublic schools where he learned about the American War against the Vietnamese. His father, he knew, had fought in that war, but Khoi was nineteen before he learned that his father had actually fought with the South Vietnamese army and had spent 3 years in a prison camp after the war. (Had he spent 4 years, he might have been granted asylum in the US.)
History, Khoi said, is written by the victor. But with the internet, more young Vietnamese are learning an alternative view to the one taught in school: that the American War was also as civil war..
A lot of this came out as a prologue to the Cu Chi tunnels, which are but a small part of the vast network of tunnels used by the Viet Cong since 1948 and the war with the French. The historical site, formerly an area where unused bombs were randomly offloaded, now consists of a small museum/gift shop and several acres, all but a tiny bit of it above ground, showing tunnel entrances and air shafts, reconstructions of underground rooms (a kitchen, a meeting rooms; a workshop where they repurposed bomb fragments into booby trap spikes). An especially chilling display shows varied examples of ingenious booby traps: even so much as seeing one of these grisly devices, let alone seeing someone impaled in one would be enough to demolish a soldier’s forward drive.
An incredible human ingenuity was on display. Tunnels made the Viet Cong invisible and elusive. (The Viet Cong also adopted the dress of farmers so as to be indistinguishable from civilians). They shot from slots in the earth at ground level. The smoke from their kitchen fires was carried far from its source through a series of pipes and collection chambers to one final chamber where it combined with steam so as to emerge as low-lying mist rather than in telltale billows. Dirt removed during the tunnel construction (all done with hand tools and small baskets), could not be heaped up in obvious mounds; thus, bomb craters became very useful.
That the tunnel memorial was 99% above ground at first seemed like a cheat. Weren’t we there to see tunnels? One 30 foot duckwalk through a tunnel (enlarged for tourists) was claustrophobic enough for Michelle. And some fighters spent most of twenty years inside, coming out only at night. Of course, they spent their time in the various underground rooms, and not in the squeeze ways. Still.
Throughout our visit, gunshots were a constant in the background thanks to other tourists who, for $3 a bullet, could shoot unmovable AK47s into a dirt bluff maybe 25 yards away. Some people pony up the $300 for a whole round. “They see it as a once in a lifetime experience,” Khoi said. Did they also love the rifles and cluster bombs on display in the welcome center?
Just being in a different country is a fascination. So many things to see. Vast apartment blocks. Jackfruit hanging on trees. Hundreds of coffee shops. Above ground graves. Fighting cocks kept in individual chicken-wire domes. Motorbike fashion (Despite the humid 93 degree heat, almost everyone on a motorbike is covered head to toe. Some women add a kind of large apron over their clothes. I assumed they covered up for protection, but Khoi said it’s sheer vanity—they don’t want to get the least bit darker.)
Back in Ho Chi Minh City, we had lunch at a large restaurant in District 1 where Michelle felt the cha gio (the crunchy deep fried pork and mushroom eggrolls you wrap with herbs in cold fresh lettuce) surpassed Golden Deli’s (Jim disagreed). Then we did the district’s greatest hits: the French-built Hotel de Ville (now housing government offices) whose exterior sculpture depicts the beautiful woman (France) presiding over savage beasts (the Vietnamese). Today, the Hotel presides over the City’s most luxurious shopping district, (Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Hermes, etc.) as well as a large statue of Ho Chi Minh. “He must feel lonely here,” said Khoi. “All alone in the middle of so much capitalism.”
We saw the Notre Dame church, a smaller replica in brick of its Parisian counterpart if devoid of the original’s gargoyles and flying buttresses. Even so, every last construction element—brick, stone, shingles—had been imported from France) We strolled through nearby parks, paused at what was once the “South Vietnam White House” and is now the “Reunification Palace,” whose gates were crashed through by VC tanks at the ending of the war). We split up at the War Remnants Museum where Jim went inside and Michelle went back to the hotel for a much yearned-for nap. Jim found the War Remnants Museum a powerful reminder of the horror of the war. Most disturbing were the pictures of the Agent Orange victims. Most moving were the displays about the many photographers who put themselves at risk to document the conflict.
For dinner, we walked back to District 1 to climb 5 or 6 flights to the Secret Garden, an al fresco rooftop restaurantvwhere we had bitter melon for the first time. (It was bitter). As part of the scenery, two roosters, each in his own wire home, were set amid the greenery—one, semi blind, was perhaps a cockfight survivor) (“Pets! Not going to eat!” the waitress assured us. ) A cat hung out by the cash register. Our kind of restaurant.
We walked the mile back to the hotel with an Australian couple also staying there. Aid (short for Adrian) was a retired anthropologist; Jane, his wife, was a semi-retired electoral worker. Crossing city streets here means stepping into that river of cars and motorbikes. At each intersection, Jane, long accustomed to Asian cities, took hold of Michelle’s arm and, like a stern and loving mother, guided her safely through.